The Best Gift Ever

While I was busy prepping all the Christmas stress

You got on my nerves with your jukebox mess

I bought, wrapped and cooked for all the family

But fixing up a jukebox was your priority!

Then Christmas Day came, and it all made sense

As we sat round the tree to exchange presents

You gave us each a small folded square of card

With a letter and a number — you’d worked really hard

To find the perfect tune for each of your clan

Now that makes you a very special man

So we pressed our little codes into the jukebox in turn

In suspense as the needle hit the record so we’d learn

Just which forty-five you had carefully selected

For each one of us the perfect song you had collected

For little Lily, well, it was ‘Lily the Pink’

She’s only five — sung just for her, so she thinks

For our Flynn — Tutti Frutti was the song that he chose

He is seven — massive smile as to the floor he rose

And he danced like a clown, pure joy with his dad

Then the turn of little cousin, who was just so glad

To be part of the fun with his own special tune

that Uncle Gus had chosen — I think it was Blue Moon

and then came the turn of his mum — that’s my sis

how she laughed as she danced with the kids in her midst

But when it came to mum’s turn, well, we looked on in awe

a true classic moment as she jived round the floor

She’d told us she could dance, but we’d never quite believed

‘Til we saw her rock that goose step, round the floor she did weave

And turn with grace, youth returned, flashing eyes

And her laugher, age forgotten, how we clapped, happy cries

Then for me was my favourite song of all, Mr Blue

An old classic romantic and I know, you are too

I felt so frustrated, a few years ago, when my partner was tinkering with an old jukebox instead of helping me get everything ready for Christmas. While I cleaned, shopped, wrapped, meal-planned, decorated, and got annoyed with him, he had bits of metal all over the floor and seemed oblivious to the fact that Christmas Day was fast approaching. This poem is about how he redeemed himself…
The only problem is, the gift I write about above will take some beating this year!